Cartons, boxes and containers formed from blanks of corrugated cardboard are widely used in the world for storing and for shipping materials. U.S. Pat. No. 4,291,828, for example, illustrates one carton configuration which has been used, such configuration being particularly well suited for uses in which it is desirable that the carton be capable of being automatically set up with minimal manual effort.
Given the widespread use of such cartons by disparate people, from professionals who ship large amounts of products each day to grandmothers packing a few precious heirlooms for storage, it is important that such cartons not only be easy and quick to assemble and easy to use, but also be reliable for shipping and/or storing many different objects for many different purposes.
In most uses, particularly shipping, it is important that the cartons be reliably maintained in a secure closed configuration, thereby not only protecting the contents inside the carton but also ensuring that the contents remain in the carton even if it is moved around. To accomplish this, a wide variety of techniques have been used to close the container top, including crisscrossing the top flaps of the container, taping the top flaps, and adhering the container flaps in a closed configuration through the use of adhesive applied to at least one of the flaps.
Moreover, particularly because such containers are usually secondary to the item being stored or shipped (i.e., the people using the cartons view them as a necessary material which is apart from the more valuable item placed in the carton, with such item being of primary interest), it is important that the carton not only meet the ease of use and reliability requirements, but that it meet such requirements at minimum cost. Therefore, it is desirable to form such cartons of inexpensive materials which may be easily processed with minimal waste of material.
Further, it is desirable that the cartons be able to be compactly configured when not in use to minimize the cost of shipping and storage of the cartons themselves. To accomplish this, cartons are typically formed from blanks of suitable materials such as corrugated board and are provided in a collapsed condition to the end user. Of course, given the diversity of end users, this only heightens the need for a structure which may be easily changed to a container configuration from the flat configuration.
The present invention is directed toward overcoming one or more of the problems set forth above.